Canelo-GGG: Boxing Judge Punished For Her Controversial Scorecard

The action packed middleweight showdown between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin that ended in a split draw was marred by one judge’s highly controversial score. And that judge has now rightfully been temporarily stood down from major fights.

Adalaide Byrd delivered a scorecard of 118-110 for Canelo Alvarez, which was way off in comparison to the 114-114 from Don Trella and the 115-113 scorecard in favor of Golovkin from Dave Moretti. Byrd’s scorecard sent boxing pundits and social media into frenzy with accusations flying about boxing officials being corrupt. The criticism came from all angles as even Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya took issue with the wide margin that Byrd scored the fight in favor of Canelo.

“A lot of people are not understanding 118-110, just like myself. That’s the bottom line,” De La Hoya said during the post-fight press conference.

“I think she needs to be reviewed, go back to school and learn how to judge a fight,” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez stated. GGG could only shake his head when asked about the scoring by Byrd and called it “terrible” and “very bad for the sport.”

Bob Bennett, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, became a focal point of Saturday night’s post-fight press conference and was taken to task over the selection of Byrd, who has had a history of controversial scores in both MMA and boxing.

“I’m not going to put her right back in. She’ll still be in the business but she needs to catch her breath,” Bennett said.

“Like in any profession, you have a bad night. Unfortunately, she didn’t do well. I can tell you she conducts training for us, takes judges under her wing, but her score was too wide.”

There is no timeline on how long Byrd will be away from judging. However, a similar situation took place in 2013 when C.J. Ross retired after producing heavily criticized scores in both the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley fight as well as the Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez fights. Ross retired shortly after those fights.